Dayton Head Coach Brian Gregory

"We got soundly beat today by a really good team that plays extremely hard and is very difficult to defend due to the fact that they can score inside and from the perimeter. They have two veteran guards that dominated the game today and when they miss they do a great job of keeping the balls alive and getting on the offensive glass. We needed to play with a little more poise and play with a little more toughness and we didn't do either one, so maybe we were in the game a little bit there, but give them credit because they beat us soundly. No question about it." Coach you look at a game like that, they get up 15 points and once again you have to battle back."

"You can't play the way we played against a team of that caliber. It's the same thing as against Villanova. You can't do that. We play hard and we scrap and all of that stuff and that's great but you also have to play well and we didn't do that in this game at all."

You said before this tournament started that it didn't matter wins and losses, you wanted to see progression in this team. Are you happy with that at this time?

"I think we have shown that if we do progress and shore up some things that we are very, very poor at right now we have a chance to be a very good team. Teams start building their identity during this time of the year and I said the most important thing, obviously you want to win these games, but the most important thing is how you respond to this. The identity that we need to build, we need to respond to the negatives that were obviously highlighted over the last couple of nights in terms of play, and at the same time, it speaks for where these guys have got us to the point of right now where against Kansas State and Villanova you don't play very well and you're still in the game, but that's not good enough anymore, and our guys need to embrace that challenge which I think they will."

Your identity a year ago was defense. Is that something that's lacking?

"Yeah, we're not defending and rebounding as well as you need to in order to be successful against high quality teams on a consistent basis. It's just a fact. We only lost one player from last year and he only averaged 4 rebounds per game, so it's not that. We need to do a much better job. We are not embracing the physicalness that you have to play with in order to rebound and the toughness that you need to defend. We've got to get that back pretty quick."

You were close to signing Pullen coming out of high school. Is this the kind of kid you thought you'd end up as a college player?

"Yeah, that's why I spent two years recruiting him. He's a helluva player and him and Clemente dominated the game today, and their junior and senior guards dominated the game in every aspect. Yeah, that's why I recruited him."

Something that struck me about this game was that it seemed very physical. Do you agree with that and why do you think that happened?

"They took it to us and we didn't respond as well as we needed to, but it was a physical game. You have two programs that are defensive, hardnosed, toughness emphasized type programs and we in the past have been able to match up fairly well. That's why I think in the last three years against BCS schools we are 7-4. I think one of the reasons is because we usually embrace that physical game where you got to defend with your chest and rebound with your hips and knock some people around. Give Kansas State credit because they hit us, in a good way, and I mean that in a good way."

What did you think about the scuffle there toward the end of the game?

"It's nothing, nothing. It happens probably 40 times a practice in Manhattan and in Dayton. No big deal. They got to do what they got to do on the call, because someone saw it or I thought something like that happened, but it's nothing. Move on to the next play."

They had 17 offensive rebounds, you had 13.

"We are supposed to get 13, but we can't give up 17. We are getting demolished on the glass right now, and we got to do something about it. We are not rebounding as well as we need to rebound. It's something that we've got to do a lot better job of."

How would you look at this trip overall?

"We've played four games overall, and we're 2 and 2 and we've played 4 top 30 teams probably, and we haven't played well. We've got a couple of guys who haven't played well at all. We need to get those guys playing better, and we need to respond to some of the deficiencies that were showing. When I say that, I don't think we should be a bad rebounding team, but we're not rebounding well, so we got to do something about that. We have to be much better defensively, and with upper-class guards you have to have some more poise on offense in crucial situations, and I thought we didn't have that in these last two games. I think we've shown flashes of it. Unfortunately these three games highlighted an inconsistency that we are going to have to address and improve upon when it really counts, when conference season comes around and we're able to do a better job at."